


Beacon Hills Werewolf Mafia 2: Hell's Bells

by polarNoboriryu



Series: Black Dog Sins [4]
Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Scott McCall, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Co-Alphas, F/F, Gen, Hunters, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, M/M, Multi, Pack Dynamics, Past Relationships, Werewolf 101, Werewolf Dean Winchester, Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, Werewolves, crazy hunters, high school werewolf mafia, pre-season 8 Supernatural, who put Stiles in charge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polarNoboriryu/pseuds/polarNoboriryu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His phone rang, bringing him back to work. He picked it up, stating his usual introduction. “Sheriff Stilinski?” the male voice asked.<br/>“Yes?”<br/>The man on the other end hesitated, but after a moment continued: “This is Sam Winchester. I need your help.”</p><p>OR</p><p>How To Train Your Werewolf Brother with the Help of a Bunch of Punk-Ass Kids</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello! Here is the sequel to Beacon Hills Werewolf Mafia, and I do hope you enjoy! This takes place about a year after the events of BDS:BHWM Pt 1, and most of our teen wolves are now all grown up and graduated! Isn't that exciting? 
> 
> The Winchesters left Beacon Hills and have gone off an had a few adventures, adverted a few Apocolypses, and saved the world once or twice. For those who are curious, it's loosely pre-season 8 of SPN. When a routine hunt goes wrong though, the Winchesters turn to the Beacon Hills pack for help.
> 
> I hope you enjoy and as always I love feedback and suggestions!
> 
> ~lianglan88

The motel door slammed open and Sam dragged his brother into the room. Dean had one arm clinging around Sam’s shoulder and the other clutching a bleeding wound on his side. Sam guided Dean to the grimy bed and sat him down and flicked on every light in the small room.

Dean’s breath was coming pained gasps. He had a feeling a rib or two must be broken and digging into a lung. Not good. Definitely not good. Sam was a flurry of rapid movement, grabbing a chair and first aid kit and dragging them to where Dean sat. Sam lifted up the layers of Dean’s clothing, causing Dean to wince. Sam took in the injuries with an experienced eye. Deep bloody gashes over Dean’s left ribs, and puncture wounds on the right.

“What was it?” Sam asked as he quickly, but gently started to clean and wipe away the blood.

Dean shook his head, trying to remember what happened. He reached his right hand to the gashes on the left side to feel if the bones were broken or cracked. What he didn’t expect was to feel something move beneath his testing fingers with an audible crack as the bone reset itself. The pain made him double over.

“Dean?!” Sam caught him as he lurched forward.

The pain was gone and Dean eased himself back up. Sam’s face went from confusion to worry as Dean pushed him away. “What are you-” Sam asked as Dean rushed over to the bathroom on the other side of the room. “Dean?!”

“I got it from here, Sammy. Just, pass me the kit,” Dean called from the bathroom.

“Dean, do we need to go-”

“Just pass me the kit!” Dean nearly shouted.

Brows furrowed, Sam handed Dean the first aid kit and flinched when the bathroom door slammed in his face.

Alone in the bathroom, Dean stripped off his shirt completely and starred in the mirror. He used one of the wash cloths to finish cleaning away the blood. When it was all gone, he could see it clear as day. A perfect crescent of puncture wounds, no longer bleeding. A bite. It all came crashing back to him as he leaned back against the wall of the bathroom with a thud. A fucking bite. Sam was calling him on the other side of the door, clearly worried. Dean just stood there, watching the scratches that had been deep enough to show bone start to scab over. He swallowed, his mouth dry. “Fuck.”

Sam forced the bathroom door open to find Dean on the floor, slumped against the wall. Dean looked up and Sam’s heart skipped a beat at the fear on his brother’s face. “Sammy, I think I’m in trouble,” Dean said, his voice scratchy. He moved his arms and Sam’s eyes went wide at the quickly healing wounds.

 

* * *

 

In the next week, Dean tried to run away twice. Both times Sam caught up with him quickly using a bit of tracking magic.

“Dean, just stop, ok?”

“I’m dangerous Sam! Don’t you get it? A fucking werewolf bit me! And it’s not even the kind we know about! It was some… freaking actual wolf!” Dean shouted at his brother, his voice too loud in his own ears. He could smell the worry and fear rolling off Sam in sickening waves. The heady scent made some horrible new part of him scratch just below the surface, and it made him furious. “Sam, I don’t want you near me.”

“No. This is not how we’re handling this.”

“Sam-”

“No!” Sam shouted this time. “I don’t care how dangerous this is. We’ve been in a similar situation before,” Sam’s voice dropped back to normal and he looked Dean dead in the eye. “We’ll get through this.”

“This isn’t like the time with the vampires, Sam. There is no cure.”

“Well, this time I have a soul at least. So you’re not dealing with this alone.”

Dean closed his eyes and leaned heavily back onto the hood of the Impala. Everything vibrated around him and irritated his senses. He had put a dent in the Impala’s steering wheel. He felt like he was trembling all the time with too much energy and it scared him. He heard Sam shuffle closer, put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze.

The hot Nevada sun beat down on the still highway where they stood, pulled over to the side. Dean opened his eyes and squinted at the ground. “So what do we do?”

 

* * *

 

“We need answers,” Sam said, dropping some heavy, old books on the hotel room’s desk.

Dean glossed over the titles and frowned, “these are the same ones we’ve always used.”

Sam ran a nervous hand through his hair. Dean was right of course. “Maybe there’s something we’ve missed?

“Unlikely,” Dean muttered, but pulled the first one off the top of the stack.

An hour passed as they read through material. Dean slammed the first book shut, startling Sam. “Nothing. Same old thing. Full moons, silver knives or bullets, cravings for human hearts or organs.”

Sam frowned down at his own book containing much the same. “Something was different though, right?”

Dean glanced over, “what do you mean?”

“The werewolf that attacked you… you said it was more like an actual wolf in shape?” Dean nodded, trying to fight the memory away. Sam leaned back as he thought. While Sam went deeper into thought, Dean sighed and pulled over their dad’s old journal. He flipped through it absently, not expecting to find anything new. Something caught his eye though, and he paused, opening to the page and laying the book flat on the table.

“Hey, check this out. 'Werewolves that are turned up to four generations from pureblood...' '...are less feral and can transform before, during, and after the lunar cycle.' Boom.” Dean pushed the book towards Sam who leaned forward. “Last week wasn’t a full moon, but what bit me was definitely in a wolf shape.”

“Let me see that. ‘Purebloods don't black out during the transformation. They can control themselves.’” Sam tilted his head, reading the passage.

“Sound familiar?” Dean asked, tapping the page.

“Wait- do you think that’s what those kids were? In California?” Sam stared in disbelief at the page, remembering the strange experience in Beacon Hills a year ago.

“Yeah,” Dean fidgeted in his chair, “punk ass kids,” he grumbled. It wasn’t exactly a high point in the history of Winchester hunters.

 

Sam pulled out his laptop and busied himself while Dean tried to find more information in John’s journal. When Sam pulled out his cell Dean looked up, suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Calling the Beacon Hills police department,” Sam responded, like it was the most logical thing in the world. Before Dean could catch up, Sam was asking for Sheriff Stilinski as Dean gawked.

 


	2. Chapter Two

On the third Thursday of every month, Satomi Ito, Iris LeClaire, and Sonya Volkov met to play Mahjong. This month they sat at Sonya’s small kitchen table and were each sipping a warm beverage of their own preference. The tiles clicked softly as they played and every now and again someone would call a play. These were quiet meetings most of the time and the women all enjoyed the peace and occasional conversation. They shared the kind of friendship older women prize; one where each shared memories and recipes, stories that left them giggling like school-girls and stories of hard times faced in respective home countries.

Despite their ages, their friendship was relatively new. The three matrons had met through their relations to the Beacon Hills Pack; Satomi an alpha of a neighboring town’s pack, Sonya was Ana’s aunt and guardian, and Iris was Jan’s abuela. Despite not being life long friends, they all had enough experience with the way of things to know that something heavy hung in the air.

Satomi won the final game, as usual, and packed away the pieces into their portable box. Once the table cleared, the three ladies sat in contemplative silence and sipper their beverages. Sonya polished off her black coffee and set the mug down, glancing first at Iris then Satomi. “When my dear brother, God rest his soul, decided to move to the States, he broke it to our parents over dinner. I knew it was coming, but to hear him say it was still a surprise. He was a restless soul, and I always knew he could not stay under the crumbling grip of the USSR. When he said it, no one spoke a word. Our parents kept eating, they said nothing. It was like they would neither fight it or acknowledge it. That is what it feels like right now.” Sonya nodded, watching Satomi’s still expression. “What is it, Satomi?”

Iris raised her eyebrows over her own mug of coffee. She also caught on that Satomi was distracted. Behind her controlled expression the alpha stirred, restless. Satomi took a last delicate sip of her tea and placed her cup on the table. Before she said anything, however, a screeching of brakes announced Ana was home. Satomi heard the girl apologize to Stiles for putting yet another ding in his precious Jeep and why did he have to insist on her driving? Stiles just laughed it off.

“You’re getting better Ana I promise!” Stiles reassured her and they both entered the house.

“Ana I love you but I’m never doing that again,” Jan whispered to Ana, following them down the hall.

“I told you to go with Jackson and Lydia,” Ana whispered back.

“Why are we whispering?” Stiles whispered.

All three women smiled and the atmosphere relaxed. The three walked into the kitchen, and Jan paused, surprised to find her abuela in Ana’s kitchen. Stiles waltzed over to the fridge and Ana walked over to give her aunt a kiss on the cheek.

“Sweet!!” Stiles grabbed a container from the fridge and held it above his head like an athlete holding the first place trophy. “Please, please say this is for me, Babushka?”

Sonya smiled and her grey eyes softened, “that depends, where is my payment?” Only Stiles could call Sonya anything remotely close to old lady. The other male betas of the pack maintained a healthy reverence for the woman. She was known to give a swat, werewolf or not, to anyone who didn’t show the proper respect.

Stiles dashed over to the older lady and slid dramatically to one knee before her chair. Ana rolled her eyes and greeted Satomi and Iris with shy politeness before getting Jan a drink. “Babushka, what do you desire in payment? Anything you want, I will give!” Stiles declared, taking one of Sonya’s hands in his. Sonya grinned and used her free hand to tap her cheek and Stiles popped off his knees to give her a peck on the cheek. Sonya waved the young man away and Stiles finally greeted Iris and then gave a more formal hello to Satomi.

“Ana, Stiles, Janice,” Satomi nodded, a small smile reflecting in her eyes. She watched the three romp about the kitchen for food, for a moment forgetting the other reason for her visit to Beacon Hills. It was when the next car pulled in that she remembered.

“Stiles?”

“Hmpf?” Stiles looked over to Satomi and Ana elbowed him for speaking with his mouthful. He swallowed and remembered his manners. “Yes?”

“Will Derek and Scott be available tonight?” Satomi asked, and took a sip of her tea.

Stiles paused, thinking for a moment. “Hm. Derek’s coming over soon anyway, but Scott doesn’t get off work until the clinic closes at 8. Why?”

Satomi resumed her usual steel composure and stated simply there was a matter she must discuss with the two alphas. Ana and Jan exchanged looks and Stiles’ brows meet with sudden worry.

“Who died?” Malia asked as she entered the kitchen with Jackson and Lydia. Lydia glared at the crass werecoyote.

“I see it’s time for these old ladies to move to the back porch, yes?” Iris said, standing up. Sonya nodded and grabbed the carafe of coffee and teapot. Satomi nodded to Stiles he returned the nod. The ladies disappeared from the kitchen.

“What was that all about?” Jackson asked Ana. She shrugged.

“Well it obviously doesn’t concern us. Where’s the movie?” Malia moved toward the living room, Lydia following. Jan smiled reassuringly to Ana and went to save them a seat in the small living room.

Stiles and Ana looked at each other, each a bit worried. Stiles’ stomach rumbled and Ana giggled as Stiles remembered he had a whole, giant serving of Aunt Sonya’s stroganoff left to eat.

 

* * *

 

It was late when Derek, Scott, Stiles, Ana, and Lydia sat down at Sonya’s small kitchen table with Satomi. When Ana, Stiles, and Lydia sat down at the far end of the table, Satomi gave the two alphas a questioning look, but when they both nodded, she returned the gesture. Satomi had her own advisors in her pack, but the structure of Scott’s pack continued to surprise and please her. She was worried when Derek returned to Beacon Hills and his initial actions as an alpha showed all the signs of blind ambition for power. Scott becoming a True Alpha and taking over the pack curbed these more aggressive tendencies in Derek, and more and more Satomi felt Talia Hale would be proud of her only son if she were still alive.

A pack with two alphas seemed at first a strange move to Satomi, but she was a witness to the effective leadership time and time again. To run a pack, especially one so large and diverse as the Beacon Hills pack, one person was simply not enough. Satomi knew well enough it took more than sheer force to keep so many members in line. Scott was fiercely protective, always placing the welfare of the pack first and foremost. Derek, as a born wolf, advised on things still new to Scott and the pack, and enforced Scott’s decisions. Satomi didn’t know what role Stiles could possibly play until she saw him in action first hand. Stiles and Lydia were the brains; they planned and, particularly Stiles, executed. Despite being the most recent addition to the pack, Ana found herself somehow roped into the leadership, albeit in a very quiet and less obvious way. Her intuition, keen perception, and unassuming manner made her particularly valuable in cutting to the heart of a matter.

Sonya placed a large pot of tea in the middle of the table and wished everyone a good night. Ana poured Satomi some tea and took a spot at the far end of the table. Satomi smiled. The girl knew her manners and how to be a good hostess.

“I’m sorry about calling on you without notice, but there is something we need to discuss.” Satomi took a sip. “Word has come to me that several alphas have either disappeared or been found dead along the West Coast and in Nevada. The latest body was found outside San Francisco.” She placed her tea on the table and gauged the reaction of the young adults around the table.

“Only alphas?” Stiles asked, tilting his head.

Satomi nodded. Stiles glanced at Scott and Derek. Scott was frowning and Derek, in his own way, looked concerned as well.

“What do you think it means, Ms. Satomi?” Lydia asked, raising one perfected brow.

Satomi glanced to Derek, who leaned forward. “It could be nothing. Are these lone alphas or alphas with packs?”

Satomi shook her head, and continued. “At first lone alphas were the trend, but I do now know for sure. I’ve sent someone out to make discreet inquiries, but nothing so far.”

A quiet moment passed. Stiles foot tapped nervously under the table, and he exchanged glances with Ana. She didn’t look too pleased. “Thanks for the heads up, Satomi,” Scott said, nodding to her. “If there’s anything you need from us, and help at all, just let us know.”

A smile reflected in her dark eyes. “Thank you Scott. I will let you know if anything else comes to my attention. I may call on you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a bit with this chapter. It's very wordy and a bit heavy on the exposition, but I really want to go into pack dynamics. I know I'm supposed to show and not tell, but I dunno I felt stuck. I may have to go back and fix this chapter at some point. Don't worry, the Winchesters will be back in the next chapter.


	3. Chapter Three

Stiles dropped the giant pile of completed paperwork on Deputy Parrish’s desk with a resounding thud. It startled the deputy out of his distant stare and he looked over to Stiles, surprised. “All done?”

“You doubt me?” Stiles said, scoffing. When Stiles declared to his dad a month ago he intended to pursue a degree in Criminal Justice at the local community college, Sheriff Stilinski frowned. The last thing he wanted was to have his son put in even more danger and work the hours required for this line of work, but made a deal with Stiles. He could work at the station this summer, and if he excelled expectations, the Sheriff would support Stiles one hundred percent. The Sheriff intended to bury Stiles under mountains of paperwork until it drove his son to his senses. Stiles, however, knew exactly what his dad was up to and more than willing to meet the challenge.

“Well… that’s it for today I guess.” Deputy Parrish flipped through the stack. “Sundays are slow, even here.”

“Alright then, see you tomorrow! This guy,” Stiles gestured to himself and grinned, “has a hat date tonight. The hottest date.” Parrish rolled his eyes and set about checking Stiles work.

“Stiles?” Sheriff Stilinski called from his office. The tone made Stiles pause in the doorway, feeling like he was caught sneaking out past curfew. The Sheriff waved him over, his face serious.

Once in the office, Stiles shut the door. “Alright. Here.” The Sheriff shoved his phone to his son, who looked downright confused. “It’s out of my hands I didn’t hear anything,” the Sheriff threw up his hands and left his office.

Stiles stared at the phone for a moment before bringing it to his ear and saying hello.

 

* * *

 

“Which one is Stiles?” Sam hissed as he covered the mic on the phone. The Sheriff was handing the phone over and in the moments it was taking, Sam was scrambling to remember who was who.

Dean sighed and rubbing his face, covering his eyes with his hands. “The kinda scrawny tallish one? The one with the Jeep I think.”

“Right.” Sam remembered now. The hyper one that questioned him and called him on a bluff.

_“Hello?”_

“Stiles?”

_“Yeah, who wants to know?”_

“Uh. This is Sam Winchester.”

There was a  pause on the other end. _“Winchester. Oh. The brothers who smelt like corpses,”_ Stiles paused, his voice dropping low with suspicion, _“why are you calling my dad?”_

Sam balked at the kid’s statement. Smelt like corpses, what was that supposed to mean? Dean frowned, glaring at the phone like he wanted to chuck it across the room. “Yeah. Um. We have a bit of a problem and we needed to contact someone in Beacon Hills so-”

 _“What is this about?”_ Stiles said, his voice had an edge of a growl in it. Dean heard it easily despite being across the room and the phone not being on speaker. Dean gritted his teeth and a low growl sounded from his chest. Sam’s head jerked in Dean’s direction, blinking rapidly in shock.

A heavy silence hung in the air, both in the motel room and over the phone. _“Who was that?”_ Stiles finally asked.

Sam let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Dean’s been bitten.”

 _“Oh my freaking god are you kidding?”_ Stiles laughed, making Sam frown and Dean glare even harder at the phone. _“Dude, that’s gotta be an irony of ironies! Hunter getting bit? Oh that must be really eating you guys up.”_

“Not exactly funny,” Sam ground out. He was beginning to regret making this call.

 _“Well, I mean, isn’t that an occupational risk for you guys? Did you piss off one by shooting it with silver?”_ Sam sighed and seriously considered just hanging up. _“So, what are you gonna do about it, hunter?”_

“We… we need help. You and your friends are different than the werewolves we’ve encountered before.”

 _“Hunted. I doubt you simply ‘encounter’ werewolves,”_ Stiles corrected.

Sam shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “Yeah. Well, the ones we’ve hunted don’t have any control, they can’t change any other time then the full moon.”

_“Huh. Sounds Hollywood.”_

“Fine. Listen. We need your help, Dean’s got to control this.”

There was another pause on the other end. _“Why should we help you?”_

Sam chewed his lip and glanced over to Dean. His brother was still sitting in the chair, arms crossed and upset. “I can’t loose my brother,” Sam said quietly, more to himself than the kid on the other end.

 

* * *

 

Stiles winced when he heard Sam. God, he was such a sap sometimes. Stiles sighed and ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes. “How long ago was he bitten?”

Sam ran the facts by him and Stiles nodded to himself. “Well if he hasn’t tried to tear someone’s throat out yet that’s a good sign. But that’s unlikely to last. Put him on.”

Stiles heard the phone change hands. Dean didn’t say anything, but Stiles knew it was him on the line now. “You’re gonna need to get away from Sam for a while.” Dean’s breathing hitched, but Stiles continued. “That crawling feeling under your skin? That constant anger in your chest? It’s gonna get worse. You’ve got four days until the next full moon and the first is always the worst. You’ll hurt him and you won’t be able to stop yourself.” Stiles heard a snarl on the other end and felt a twinge of sympathy. “Yup, just like that.”

 _“Can you help us or what?”_ Dean demanded after a moment.

“I’m not sure what you expect me to be able to do?” Stiles frowned, realizing with a glance at the clock he needed to leave soon.

There was a rustling noise and Sam was back. _“You can control it. How?”_

Stiles sighed and started pacing around the small office. “It’s different for everyone, I don’t know what to tell you. It depends on the person. I mean, there are some who just can’t or won’t and some people have no problems at all. It helps when you have people to watch over you at the beginning until you figure it out. Being with a pack is generally best, they can make sure you don’t hurt anyone-” Stiles babbled.

 

* * *

 

“A pack?”

_“Yeah. You know, the thing wolves tend to form?”_

Sam paused and shared a look with Dean. “Oh no,” Dean said when he realized what Sam was thinking, “no. Don’t even-”

Sam cut Dean off, his words rushing out in a sincere plea. Dean groaned and leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and bury his face in his hands.

 _“Um. Uhh. I don’t think that’s a good idea,”_ Stiles stammered. _“First of all, you guys are banned from here, remember? That was part of our deal? The one where we let you live instead of turning you over to the feds or other unpleasant things?”_

“Yeah, but where else can we go?”

 

* * *

 

Stiles clenched his teeth. This wasn’t his problem. Right now his problem was these two dickwads were making him late for an awesome night of video games and sexy quality time with Derek. “Fine. I’ll bring it up. Where are you guys anyway?”

_“We’re in Nevada, near the border with California.”_

Stiles went still. He remembered Satomi’s warning from a couple days ago and instantly tensed, but kept his voice the same. “Nevada? Alright. I’ll ask the pack about it, but no promises. What’s your number?” Stiles typed it in on his cell. “Don’t call my dad again. Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” and hung up. He let out an annoyed growl and huffed. This was going to cut into date night.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well hell's bells, what you trying to sell?  
> Put it on the table before they take us to jail.  
> What you say, got a bottle to your head,  
> And you never saw it coming, and you pretty white shirt is red!
> 
> -Hell's Bells by Cary Ann Hearst

“Are you sure about this?” Sam asked Chris Argent as the other hunter closed the circle of powdered mountain ash.

“Yeah. The mountain ash tree makes a barrier for werewolves and a few other beings. It’ll keep him in.”

“Is he gonna be ok?”

“Not really,” Stiles said, but Ana gave him a look and he shrugged. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said, toeing off his shoes and shrugging off his shirt.

“He’s going to want out,” Darak told Sam from where he stood by the front door to the small cabin. “Whatever he says or does, don’t break the barrier.”

“What about you guys?” Sam asked dubiously. Stiles shared a grin with Boyd, who was also shucking down his clothes to just the basics.

“Nothing to worry about with us! We’ll be running patrols, working off a little steam. Derek will stay and make sure things don’t get too crazy in here.”

“Can you all stop talking like I’m not right here?” Dean snapped from behind the barrier.

“I forgot how needy for attention he was,” Ana muttered as she pulled off her hoodie to reveal a sports bra. Dean snarled in her direction, his eyes flashing icy blue. She ignored him as she kicked off her jeans, uncaring of mixed company. Stiles tossed her a pair of his old basketball shorts for her to slip on.

Chris placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Maybe we should step out. Might not be the best idea for you to stay.”

Sam shook his head. “I’m staying.”

 

* * *

 

It was two days before the full moon and Dean was losing his mind. He was torn between an intense need to run, to get out of the crappy hotel room and away from Sammy and a sickening fear that if he did he’d run into someone and hurt them. It didn’t help that Sam refused to leave him alone, hovering around him and constantly asking if he was ok.

When Sam did step out briefly to get some food for them, Dean tried to dull his senses the old fashioned way. He emptied an entire bottle of cheap bourbon before he realized it wasn’t doing anything. The empty bottle shattered in his grip and the near instantaneous healing of the glass induced cuts infuriated him.

Dean sat down hard on the motel bed. After a few minutes of absently picking out glass shards, he felt numb. It wasn’t the kind of warm, vaguely burning numb alcohol induced, it was a sudden empty feeling. He was helpless. He wasn’t human anymore. He was another monster.

Bobby was gone.  Thier list of friends was short, maybe nonexistent now because of Dean. Cas was… fuck Dean didn’t know. He toyed with the idea of praying to Cas, but knew it was going to be unanswered. His chest clenched.

Dean heard Sam’s cell before he heard Sam walking up to the room. Sam rushed the rest of the way and by the time he burst in with the phone to his ear, Dean was up and the shattered bottle was kicked under the bed.

“We have conditions,” Scott said over the phone. His voice held a solid authority that made a slight chill run down Dean’s spine, and he frowned in confusion.

“Which are?” Sam asked warily, putting the phone on speaker.

 

* * *

 

“Isn’t that where Satomi said the alpha’s are disappearing?” Scott asked after he’d digested his best friend’s ramble.

“Yeah. I’m thinking they might have something to do with it. Make sense doesn’t it? A couple hunters going after alpha’s only, wouldn’t the chances of them getting bitten be pretty high?”

Scott thought it over as he finished plastering the cast on the doberman’s leg. He pet the dog reassuringly when it whined. “Then why would they call us for help?”

“You’re thinking they have ulterior motives.” Derek spoke up from the stool set up in the corner of Deaton’s clinic room.

Stiles nodded, his face serious and his mind racing. It also occurred to him this was all a big coincidence, but it was safer to assume these guys were guilty until proven innocent. It could be a ploy to attack them.

Scott stood up straight and stretched. He’d been working for about nine hours and it was wearing on him. “I don’t like all these unknowns. If they’re trying to lure us into a trap, what could they hope to accomplish? If they’re genuine… what should we do about it?”

“We need more information,” Derek said and almost immediately regretted it. Those were Stiles’ magic words. Stiles grinned and bounced on his feet, ready to do what he did best: come up with a plan.

 

* * *

 

“We’ll meet you at a safe house close to where you guys are. It’s too close to the full moon for you to make it to Beacon Hills, and frankly I’m keeping to our agreement. We’ll help you through this first full moon and we’ll take it from there.”

“What do you mean by ‘take it from there’?” Sam asked wearily.

“Derek’s going to evaluate the situation. If he thinks there’s some hope and we can trust you guys, I’ll lift the ban. You’ll come to Beacon Hills and we’ll help Dean if we can,” Scott said.

“And if not?” Dean spoke up, suspicion making his voice crack.

“If Derek deems you a threat, he’ll act accordingly.” Scott’s tone made Sam’s heart skip a beat and he swallowed hard when he saw Dean’s eyes flash an eerie, glowing blue. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on putting things in perspective.

“Sounds reasonable,” Sam said finally.

 

* * *

 

Sam was beginning to doubt how reasonable it could be to be in a tiny, secluded shack in the middle of the desert between Nevada and California with four… five werewolves and a hunter he didn’t know.

“Be careful,” Derek said quietly to Stiles as he went to leave the cabin. “Stay close.”

Stiles smiled softly, and pulled Derek in for a chaste kiss. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” The plan was simple. Stiles was surprised to learn the brothers didn’t pursue or kill the alpha that had bitten Dean. Apparently it’d just run off. Knowing the possessive tendencies of alphas Stiles suggested running patrols around the safe house just in case the alpha was following the Winchesters. If it was, Stiles would call for Derek and see if they could get any information out of the unknown alpha about the deaths and disappearances in the area.

Meanwhile, Chris was going to subtly question Sam, hunter to hunter. The older hunter may be unable to hear the changes in breathing and heart rate when someone lied, but nonetheless was excellent at gauging the truth. Derek would stay with Dean and evaluate how the hunter took to his new wolf. It was unlikely Dean could escape the barrier of mountain ash, but stranger things have happened.

“Can we go, these guys reek,” Boyd muttered, referring to the Winchesters. Ana agreed. She really didn’t like how they smelt like they’d crawled out of shallow graves. Nothing good ever comes back from the dead.

“Ok, see you in a bit! Have fun pup-sitting!” Stiles saluted Dean mockingly and hopped down off the steps leading out the front door. Ana and Boyd followed, running off into the desert night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to change the title a little bit, I hope ya'll don't mind. Hell's Bells is a song I love and it kind of fits the mood I'm trying to incorporate into the story. The series and the first part are also named after a song, Black Dog Sin by Joshua Burnside, so I thought I'd stick to the theme.


	5. Chapter Five

“You two should leave,” Derek said to Chris and Sam. He could easily tell Dean was fighting the change and that always made for difficulties.

“No, I’m staying,” Sam asserted, taking a step forward.

“Sammy,” Dean gasped out the name as a wave of pain rolled through him, “just go.”

“Dean-” Sam took a step back when Dean gnashed his fangs at him.

“I don’t think he’ll take it personally if you step outside to wait this out,” Chris said as he put a firm hand on the taller man’s shoulder and steered them out passed Derek, who nodded ever so slightly to Chris.

Once they were outside, Derek shrugged off his leather jacket and lay it off to the side with the small pile of clothes shed by the others. “You shouldn’t fight it Dean. It’s just going to be more painful and difficult to control.” Derek watched as Dean glared at him with still human eyes.

“How are you not-?”

Derek’s red eyes met Dean’s and the hunter’s voice failed. Derek felt the ceaseless pull of the full moon hanging bright and clear in the desert sky. He wouldn’t deny there was a deep desire to shed his human shape and run with his pack, but the fact that his pack was so close by, that he could feel Stiles’ reassuring presence, kept the wolf in him cooperative. How Dean was keeping the shift off this much for the long into the night peaked Derek’s interest.

“The only way you can control it is to accept it. If you don’t it’ll leave you weak and susceptible to others controlling you.” Dean looked horrified by the notion. “So, if you don’t stop fighting it I’ll show you just what I mean.” He saw the older man struggle, clearly seeing it as two equally bad options. “Dean, Sam’s safe. You can’t hurt him or anyone else right now.”

* * *

“Don’t beat yourself up. When it comes to family it’s really the thought that counts,” Chris said as he sat down by the fire he just lit. He watched Sam sit down with hesitation and continued, “he probably just didn’t want you to see him like that.”

Sam sighed and tried to calm down. Argent was right. Sam knew they’d get through this somehow, but it was difficult to shove aside the anxiety. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Chris pulled out a flask from his jacket and offered it to Sam, who accepted it after a moment.

“So, what brought you to these parts?” Chris asked as he took back his flask and took a drink.

Sam tried to ignore the sound of something heavy dropping from inside the cabin. “We were on a hunt.”

Chris nodded, not surprised. He’d heard quite a bit about the Winchesters since their last encounter, a mixed bag of information and gossip from hunters he knew across the country that will still talk to him. Their reputation left him impressed and also weary. “What were you hunting?”

Sam looked over and regarded the older hunter. He realized Chris was digging for information, but understood and decided not to hold it against him. He’d do the same thing given the circumstances. Just because he was a hunter didn’t mean he implicitly trusted him, and Sam knew that Chris felt the same. If Sam was to have any hope of helping Dean, he needed to convince these people they were trustworthy.

“A friend of ours tipped us off to possible Skinwalker activity outside Carson City. We were investigating leads on the den’s location in the sewers when we got separated. When I found a fresh body I went to find Dean again and… found him unconscious and bloody.”

“Skinwalkers huh? I’ve run into them once or twice. Who told you about them?”

“Garth. He’s kind of our living police scanner.”

Chris didn’t know the name, but made a note to look into it. “What made you so sure it was a werewolf and not a skinwalker that bit him?”

“Dean was pretty certain it wasn’t a dog or anything dog-like that bit him.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go after the alpha,” Chris raised an eyebrow to the younger hunter.

“Well I wasn’t exactly thinking of hunting anything when Dean was freaking out. I made a call and Garth assured me someone else was coming to finish up the hunt.”

“Any word on that?” Sam shook his head. He shivered a little despite the fire keeping the desert night chill off. He saw something moving quickly through the moonlit night off in the distance and tensed.

“Sam, I’m going to be very direct with you. I know so far you’ve told me the truth, and I need to you keep that up. Is there any other reason you’ve come to this area? Have you crossed over to California?”

Sam’s brows furrowed in confusion. “No, we’ve just been around Carson City for the past two weeks. Why?”

“Any other hunters you know of in the area?” Sam shook his head. There could be other hunters in the area but honestly he didn’t know what Argent was getting at. Chris appeared satisfied.

* * *

“Ha! I knew it!” Stiles slid to a stop just short of colliding with the fire. Sam jumped and nearly fell off the cracked log he was sitting on with the sudden appearance of the werewolf. “I’m faster than you!”

Ana huffed as she came into the circle of firelight, a little out of breath. “Not so quick when there’s no trees to squirrel away in huh?” Stiles gave the girl a fang filled grin as she growled and shoved him.

“Yeah, don’t get used to it. You can be as fast as you want but won’t matter a bit if you can’t stop in time,” she teased, gesturing to the fire he’d almost collided with. Sam glanced nervously between the two, not having seen them shifted before. He found it bewildering. He’d seen other werewolves in his day, but they were usually preoccupied with trying to rip out his heart for dinner. Seeing these two sit down across from him with gold eyes gleaming in the night made him uncomfortable.

“Find anything?” Chris asked.

“Nope,” Stiles said as he stretched out. “Boyd’s keeping up a mile wide perimeter, Ana will take over for him in a bit.”

“It’s rude to stare, you know.” Sam shifted nervously when Ana looked directly at him. Her eyes glowed brighter than the fire and the offended look on her inhuman and distinctly wolfish features was unsettling.

“Really, you’d think you’ve never seen a werewolf before,” Stiles retorted, his legs sticking out before him as he leaned back on his arms supported on the log he was sitting on.

“Give the guy a break,” Chris said, getting up and moving in the direction of Stiles’ parked jeep.

Stiles and Ana exchanged glances; Stiles snorted and Ana rolled her eyes. Chris came back dragging a large cooler behind him and left it by Stiles. “Thanks! There’s nothing to eat here, like, couldn’t even get a rabbit.”

“Maybe if you’d stopped insisting on racing you might’ve caught one,” Ana smiled and snatched a container of raw beef from Stiles.

“Aw, c’mon Ana don’t be a sore loser.”

“Can’t bring home the bacon you don’t deserve the beef,” she said, holding the container out of reach.

As Sam looked on in disbelief, Stiles growled and launched at Ana. The girl rolled back off the log to dodge Stiles’ grip and the two proceeded to fight over the tupperware of raw steaks, snarling and snapping. Chris shook his head and offered Sam a sandwich from the cooler.

“Is-is this normal?” Sam whispered to Chris.

“Son, you have no idea,” Chris mumbled as Stiles dove for the steaks Ana held clutched to her chest as she lay on her back. She kicked out with both legs and sent Stiles pole vaulting over her.

* * *

“Rise and shine old man!” Stiles sang out as Chris scuffed a break in the mountain ash circle. Dean groaned and blinked a few times at the too bright sunlight pouring in from the open front door. Stiles crossed over to where Dean lay prone on the hard wooden floors and paused, looking down. “Welcome to the worst hangover in your life,” he said and offered Dean a hand up.

Dean looked at him incredulously but felt far too battered to refuse the offered hand. Stiles hoisted the hunter effortlessly. “Sam?” Dean asked, his throat dry and raspy.

“Still asleep. I’d let him, he was up pretty much all night.”

Dean nodded and immediately regretted it and clutched his head in pain. “Fucking hell…”

“Yeah, pretty much. Don’t worry though, it’s just once a month. Gets a bit less horrible over time, old man.”

“‘m not old,” Dean groaned, rubbing his eyes. The light in the doorway dimmed and someone threw something at Dean, he caught it without thinking. It was a bottle of cold water.

“Stiles, Derek wants you,” Ana called from the doorway. Stiles gave Dean a solid slap on the back and walked out.

“What happened? Dean asked after finishing off the water. Ana tossed him another.

She shrugged and slipped into her normal clothes. “You’ll remember if you want to, otherwise don’t dwell on it. Mr. Argent has some breakfast if you want some.” She turned and walked out, leaving the door open after her. Dean frowned, not sure what the girl was getting at, but fuck he was hungry.

* * *

Stiles found Derek about three miles away, on the opposite side of the safehouse from the highway. He looked tired. Stiles still vibrated with energy from the night before, but knew keeping away a full shift all night drained Derek. He came over to his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around Derek’s waist. “What is it?”

Derek dropped his gaze from the horizon to the nearly indiscernible tracks before him in the desert dust. “We had company last night, but not for long.”

Stiles pulled away and stared at the trail of tracks, head tilting to one side. How could he have missed these? “Should we follow them?”

Derek could smell the thunderstorm brewing beyond the horizon in the direction of the tracks. The storm would wash away what was left of the trail. He could try to pick up the trail anyway, but he’d have to go alone to beat the approaching storm. He’d promised Scott that none of them would go off on their own for any reason. They needed information but not at the risk of anyone being caught by themselves. Plus, the tracks came no closer than the point where Derek and Stiles stood. Was this a true threat?

“Let’s go back and talk with the others,” Stiles suggested. “You need some sleep,” Stiles tugged slightly at Derek’s arm, “shouldn’t go running off like this.” Derek raised an eyebrow and pulled Stiles close.

“Are you trying to tell me not to be reckless? Pot calling the kettle black?” Derek smiled and turned back towards the safe house.


	6. Chapter Six

Once Derek and Stiles arrived back at the cabin, they pulled Boyd, Ana, and Chris aside to discuss the tracks in the desert. Sam woke up when Dean tried to quietly open the trunk to the Impala for a change of clothes.

“So… how was it?”

Dean chucked the blood stained shirt in the back seat and shrugged on a clean one. He felt better already, physically anyway. He still felt an alien tension in his muscles but it was a bit more tolerable than the past few days. “I don’t know, I don’t remember much after you went outside.” Dean was glad Sam didn’t see him apparently claw at his own skin and whatever the hell else he did that resulted in the bloodstains on the cabin floor.

“Where are they?”

“Over there, talking about something what’s-his-name, Derek? found in the desert. Tracks of some sort.”

Sam frowned. Dean walked over to the driver’s side of the Impala and for a brief moment considered just jumping in and leaving this godforsaken place behind. He had another month right?

“Dean, don’t even.” Sam said softly. Dean glared at him. “I know what you’re thinking and we’re not doing that.”

“Why not? I got another month and we can find some abandoned place to shack up, get some of that mountain ash stuff and just do this again.”

“You know that’s not going to work. Do I need to remind you that apparently you can change at any time? You’re not exactly the most mild mannered guy lately.” Sam reached in and grabbed the keys to the Impala. “We’re going to do this properly.”

Dean slammed the door to the Impala shut, shaking the whole car. Sam gave him a stop-throwing-a-temper-tantrum look.

* * *

After updating Scott, everyone agreed to take off later that afternoon. Derek and Stiles went to sleep in the cabin’s one bedroom and Boyd took a nap in the back seat of the Jeep, leaving all the doors open in the stifling heat. Ana kept watch. She sat on the edge of the small porch, legs dangling over the edge, a worn paperback copy of War and Peace in hand. The Winchesters and Chris decided to clean their weapons on the porch as well. The quiet was heavy, but no one appeared willing to break it.

Scott agreed to let the Winchesters travel to Beacon Hills, but for the time being, he was only letting Dean come. Sam and Chris were to stay behind and track the alpha in the desert until they found answers. Sam blatantly refused at first, there was no way he was letting Dean out of sight with people he didn’t completely trust. Chris volunteered to stay with Sam to balance the risks between the two groups. To Sam’s surprise, Dean encouraged Sam to follow suit. He wanted to know who or what was out in the desert and if it was the wolf that’d bit him. He wanted it dead. Dean also wanted Sam away from all these werewolves as much as possible, but didn’t admit it.

Once Chris and Sam found intel, they could drive back to Beacon Hills. It was a particularly good way to keep everyone in check, Stiles had to admit. He wished he’d come up with the idea. He smiled to himself, his best friend was finally picking up some of Stiles’ finer traits. Derek also agreed. He’d watched Dean hold off under a full moon for a remarkable amount of time and that seemed promising to him. Dean still went vicious once he stopped trying to hold off the shift, but that’s just what happens. Chris had reassured him that the brothers weren’t involved with the recent alpha hunts and wanted to find out who was. None of the Beacon Hills pack trusted the two hunters, but decided they weren’t an active threat.

For now, everyone was in tense agreement. Ana hid her agitation to the idea of an unstable hunter-turned-werewolf sharpening a rather threatening looking dagger less than three feet away. She trusted the decisions of her alphas, but being around the Winchesters gave her a strange sense of unease. She knew they were telling the truth, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of something pulling the strings behind the curtain. She really wanted to go home and burrow into a blanket nest with Jan and let the other girl ease the tension like no one else could. The thought made her smile softly to herself and blush a little.

* * *

The large grey wolf approached the parked, black SUV cautiously. A woman was leaning against it casually, like it was perfectly normal to meet in the middle of the desert, at night, by a dry creek bed. The wolf growled low, but stood up to confront her.

“I did what you wanted. The Bite took and the hunters are with the pack you mentioned. Now let her go,” the older man said, he hair grey and eyes red under the waning moonlight.

“Very well, I’m a woman of my word,” she said, dangling her car keys. She pressed the unlock button and the SUV’s trunk opened with a hiss of gears. There was a large dog kennel in the back, bound in gleaming silver chains. The older man rushed forward and tore at the chains, and pulled out the whimpering husky.

He held the dog tightly, burying his face in her fur and growling at the scent of fear and caked blood. He bent down and gently put the dog on the ground and quickly took off his baggy coat and wrapped the dog in it with care. After a moment, the dog shifted and a young girl, no older than thirteen or fourteen, struggled to get up. He pulled her in once more for a tight embrace. She kept whispering that she was sorry, so sorry, and he kept saying she was okay now.

He was so relieved that he didn’t see the gleam of the gun until it was too late. He moved just fast enough to put himself in the path of the wolfsbane bullet. The girl screamed as her dad slumped over, dead before he reached the dusty ground, blood pulling from the point blank shot to the heart.

A second shot rang out over the desert as the girl launched herself in fury at the woman. She landed with a dull thud. The woman holstered her gun and pulled a shovel from the back seat of her vehicle. She used it to nudge the bodies into the dry creek bed. The air was thick with a coming thunderstorm. The bodies would soon we washed away with a flash flood. The woman tossed the shovel into her vehicle and hopped into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbled with the first clap of thunder and the rain washed away the tire tracks.


	7. Chapter Seven

_Side of the road came with ‘im_

_Covered in blood dried sand_

_Never knew who he was or where he came from_

_I was checking the dead man’s pockets_

_I was checking the dead man’s brain_

_-Dead Man’s Pockets, Vudu Sister_

The rain flushed the desert landscape while the hunters waited it out in the cabin. In the morning the sun came out with a vengeance and made short work of what water didn’t soak into the thirsty ground. Dean would kill him if he tried to drive the Impala out into the blinding landscape, so Chris and Sam drove to the nearest town first to acquire a better ride.

Chris drove the rusty pickup off the highway and in the direction Derek had indicated on a basic map. Once they arrived in the area, both hunters confirmed that the rain had washed away whatever trail there may have been. Sam huffed in frustration, but Chris meering walked around the parked truck in slow, ever-opening circle until he stopped and bent down. He called Sam over.

“May not be an actual track, but look,” the older man pointed to a sparse, low desert shrub. Sam squinted in the light, but saw what Chris meant. Something of decent size had crushed the shrub. They set off in the opposite direction of the cabin, finding slight hints of a large animal progress through the landscape. Chris tossed the keys to the truck to Sam. He’d follow the trail on foot, Sam would follow him with the truck.

Sam hesitated, and finally asked why Chris was letting him have the keys. “I’m very aware you could take off and leave my sorry ass out here, but I also know you’d do anything to help your brother. This could lead to some answers you need more than I do. Plus, you’re missing quite a few bits of the trail,” Argent said, giving Sam a lopsided grin. Sam shrugged.

They followed the trail for another five miles, farther and farther into the middle of nowhere. Chris noticed more vegetation and less snapped twigs and flattened grasses as he walked on. He wasn’t too surprised when they came across the washed out creekbed. Sam pulled the truck to a stop and pointed down along the south. In the distance, black shapes circled in the air.

Chris and Sam followed the almost bone-dry trench until it made a sudden u-shaped bend and found the source of the buzzards’ interest. Sam slid down into the muddy deposit, causing the birds to scatter. There was a tattered body caught on a branch sticking out of the compacted bank. Sam carefully moved the body until it rolled onto its back with a sick plop onto the mud.

“Must be the alpha,” Chris called down from on top of the bank. He pointed to the bloody gunshot wound. Blackened veins formed a web around the hole left by the bullet, indicating a high concentration of wolfsbane. Sam frowned. He was unfamiliar with the effects of wolfsbane because he’d only ever used silver to hunt werewolves. In his experience, a dead werewolf was indistinguishable from a dead human. Chris made his way into the creek bed for a closer look.

It was clearly an older man, probably ten years older than himself. His eyes were missing, as well as his tongue. Scavengers always go for the softest parts first. With Sam’s help they rolled the body onto its stomach and Chris examined the wound. “Execution style,” he muttered. He got behind Sam, who was still crouched, and indicated he should get on his knees. He held up an imaginary gun and pointed it at the other hunter. “He probably could’ve dodged the shot but didn’t. He was dead in seconds, a direct shot to the heart…”

Sam stood up and thought over the implications. Who was he? Who killed him? What could this have to do with Dean? “I don’t like this,” Sam said quietly. “This wasn’t random.”

“Someone else was here. Why wouldn’t he try to avoid the shot?” Chris didn’t look too please either.

Sam and Chris both jumped and pulled out their weapons when they heard something move around the bend of the creek bed. They glanced at each other and nodded, Sam pulling up his shotgun and advanced around the bend. Chris followed right behind, crossbow at the ready.

 

* * *

 

The next ten hours had to be the longest in Dean’s life so far. He was forced to sit in the back seat passenger side, cramped because the passenger seat was apparently stuck all the way back. Stiles got antsy about an hour in, and soon it started to affect his driving. When he swerved due to speaking with his hands emphatically, Derek made him switch with Boyd.

Stiles was worse in the back trunk area because he wasn’t buckled down and was right by Dean’s ear when he leaned forward over the back seat to talk to Derek, or Ana, or Boyd. He was constantly moving, unable to sit still, and Dean snapped at him when he started kicking the back tire absently.

“Rude!” Ana said, glaring at Dean from her position as shotgun. Derek gave her a beseeching look, and she huffed. Ana put War and Peace away, and with the Jeep going ninety down a windy desert highway, she unbuckled. She crawled over the center console and rolled over the back seat, kicking Dean in the process (undoubtedly on purpose he was sure) and sat in the back with Stiles.

Dean saw the open front seat like a glowing beacon of a lighthouse during a storm at sea, but when he went to unbuckle, the look Derek gave him stopped him dead.

“Pass me the cards?” Ana said from her cramped new spot. Derek tossed her a pack of cards and she dealt them out. Dean felt like he was stuck in a daycare when the two started playing black jack and then Spit. Was she his babysitter or something? Good god. Those two had somehow taken him down a year ago, hogtied him and dragged him to the police station. It was surreal. There they sat, behind him like kids on a road trip, playing cards.

Boyd put on some weird dubstep music and it rang in Dean’s ears. He glanced at Derek, imagining he had to be just as irritated as himself. The guys was stoic and distant, putting off an air of authority and aloofness that Dean felt had to clash with these kids. Derek appeared unaffected by the chaos, even when the backseat game of Spit evolved into a full blown wrestling match and the music shook the old Jeep. If anything, he glanced to the back and smiled ever-so-slightly with a hint of affection.

_These werewolves are fucking nuts,_ Dean thought.

 

* * *

 

The girl was crawling on all fours, gasping and shaking. Sam and Chris glanced at each other, unsure of what to do. She was so young and wearing only an oversized coat over her mud and blood crusted skin. Her head hung low, matted hair dangling over her face. Chris took a step forward, crossbow still up. She shuddered and collapsed on her side, wheezing and coughing up a greenish-black substance.

Sam froze, realizing she was a skinwalker. Chris took another step as she tried and failed to gasp for air. He saw the blackish blood oozing out of a festering bullet wound and felt his heart clench. Chris knew skinwalkers were vulnerable to silver, but wondered why a wolfsbane bullet was having such an effect on a skinwalker.

“Who did this to you?” Chris asked softly.

She gagged up more black bile and scratched weakly at the drying mud with canine claws. She gasped and looked up at him, her eyes unfocused. “If you tell us, we’ll make it stop.”

She closed her eyes and licked her blackened lips. “S-s-s,” she coughed and swallowed, “silver…” and she slumped over. Sam saw her body convulse and go limp, a low breath escaping her. Chris lowered his crossbow and sighed.

“Help me get the bodies into the back,” Chris said, his voice heavy.

When they got back to the cabin, Sam started to dig a grave while Chris examined the bodies more closely. When they were laid out together, he saw some resemblance in their features. They were family, he realized. He focused on the alpha, using a set of pliers to pull out the bullet from the damaged tissue. It was messy work. The bullet was wedged into shriveled heart tissue, but he eventually found it and pulled it out. He held it up to the light and frowned. All that was left was a silver jacket. A wolfsbane bullet with silver casing.

Sam came over and when he saw Chris hesitate to examine the girl, he offered to trade. Chris accepted and took a turn at digging the grave.

They buried them together in the unmarked grave. Sam had a feeling animals would still get to them but he felt uncomfortable with the thought of just leaving them out. They placed the two spent slugs into a small ziplock bag for later. 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll tell you a story of James Monroe   
> He's a man who you won't wanna know   
> And I've been waiting for far too long  
> So that's why I want to sing you this song
> 
> ~James Monroe, The Henry Girls

The air was thick with tension. Dean kept his eyes on Ana, hardly noticing the rocking of the Jeep. Her face was blank and there was not even the slightest bit of tension in her body as she sat there, considering. Stiles glanced over to Derek and bit his lip. Derek’s eyes went from Ana to Dean, measuring each of them.

“All in,” she said finally, her voice even and low. She sat across from him in the back seat where Derek sat before. She was wearing only a cami and shorts. Dean sat facing her with only his own jeans on. Both were down to their last article of clothing to shed, cards in hand.

She was bluffing. Dean was one hell of a poker player and the fact that he could hear her heartbeat made it that much easier. Stiles lost out after only a few hands and Derek, Ana, and Dean played for nearly forty five minutes before Derek lost to Dean. The two of them appeared to be evenly matched, but this was the end.

“Well, this was fun but,” Dean threw down his cards. “Four of a kind, Aces.”

“Once again, you’re just too cocky for your own good, Winchester,” Ana replied. A slow grin spread across her features as she flipped over her own hand, revealing a straight flush of clubs.

“No fucking way!” Dean exclaimed. “You were bluffing! I heard your pulse skip!”

“Of course I was. Double bluff,” she said, high fiving Stiles over the back seat.

“Can’t rely on listening to her heart beat man,” Stiles said. “The first thing you gotta learn is to control your heartbeat. Lesson one of Werewolf 101. Anything that accelerates your pulse can trigger a shift. Therefore, young padawan, control your pulse you must.”

“She’s particularly zen with that bit,” Boyd called from the driver’s seat.

Dean frowned, looking almost like he was pouting before he asked Ana what his tell was. She collected the cards and handed them to Stiles. “A slight change in your breathing as well as dilation in your pupils.”

Dean was baffled. When it came to this sort of thing he always thought he had decent control over his body. He’d been in more than his fair share of dodgy situations where he had to check himself.

“You’ll have to learn better control,” Derek said.

Stiles shuffled the cards quickly and asked if they were going to play again. Ana raised an eyebrow in challenge to the hunter. Dean shrugged on his shirts and gave her a smirk. Challenge accepted. The other three put on their own clothes again for the next round of strip poker. When lacking in chips and money, sometimes you just have to use what’s on hand.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, look at this,” Sam said. He pointed to the napkin holder on the diner table after the waitress took their drink orders. Chris turned a bit and took in the missing person flyer tucked under the dispenser cover. “Looks familiar?”

Chris nodded and turned pulled out the image to get a better look. It was the girl from the desert but she looked drastically different with the wide, happy smile on her face. “Danielle Gildman. Missing for two months. Last seen in Carson City. Believed to be traveling with caucasian male, aged late 50s. Any information please contact the Las Vegas Police Department.”

Sam drummed his fingers on the table top, brow creased with thought. “What’s going on here? The two of them were clearly related, maybe father and daughter or uncle, but she was a skinwalker and he was a werewolf. Is it possible for that to be a thing?”

Chris folded up the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “It’s very possible. Malia, back home, is Derek’s cousin. She’s a werecoyote with a pureblood werewolf father. We still don’t know who her mother was, but it’s clear that even in pureblood lines not everyone’s the same. Most of Derek’s family were human. It’s all some sort of convoluted genetics. A skinwalker born to werewolf isn’t so far of a stretch. She could’ve been born a human and been bitten by a skinwalker too.”

Sam considered the possibilities. He thought back to Dean and his original hunt out here. Reports of a spike of bodies missing organs, mostly hearts, being found in and around Henderson, just outside of Las Vegas. Sam and Dean’s investigation lead them to an abandoned quarry where they found a recently vacated den. The next body was found in Tonopah, then Hawthorne, and finally in the inner part of Carson City. Sam wondered if the girl, Danielle, was one of the skinwalkers. If so, where were the others? How did the alpha play into all this? Who killed them in the desert?

“We need to go to Las Vegas. That’s where this all started,” Sam said finally. Chris looked at him dubiously, but what else could they do? The trail was dried up here, perhaps backtracking to the source was the best idea. Chris wanted to know who was using silver cased wolfsbane bullets.

 

* * *

 

Sam knocked on the door and greeted the tall, thin woman with dark hair. “Hello, Ms. Gildman? I’m Agent Marshal Lee with the FBI. I’d like to ask you some questions about your missing daughter.”

Ms. Gildman eyed him but nodded and let him inside the small shotgun shack of a house. She sat down at her small kitchen table and asked Sam if he’d like anything to drink. Sam declined and sat down after she did.

“Ms. Gildman, you suspect your daughter was kidnapped by her estranged father?” he began, pulling out an official looking notepad.

“I don’t suspect, Agent Lee. I know she’s with him.”

Sam uncapped his pen and asked her what made her so sure. The woman let out a deep sigh and folded her hands in her lap. “My relationship with her father, Alex Cole, was a brief fling. I used to run with an unpleasant crowd and we met that way. He was a bad boy and for some reason that was what pulled me in.” She close her eyes as if remembering something. “He became rather… possessive. He wanted me to move in with him and join in on his… group of friends. When I realized how deep he was in with a group of crazed drug addicts, I wanted out and to cut off any connection with him. I moved. He followed me. He somehow knew I was pregnant and insisted that I stay with him. I refused. Long story short, the cops ended up putting him away for his criminal activities. I gave birth to Danny and we’ve been getting by just fine on our own until six months ago.”

Sam glanced at his notes. “That’s right around when Mr. Cole was released from prison?”

She nodded, looking down at her hands. “He called me. Said he needed to talk to Danny. He was turning his life around. He said he found an honest job in Henderson. He was actually… not what I expected. He sounded humbled. He just wanted to get to know Danny.”

“How did your daughter take it?”

“She didn’t want anything to do with him at first. I actually,” Ms. Gildman took a deep breath, “I encouraged her to talk with him on the phone.”

Sam arched an eyebrow. “Why did you do that, Ms. Gildman?”

She shifted in her chair and clenched her hands a bit. “Before Alex went to prison, he warned me that Danny might… share some sort of genetic condition common in Alex’s family history. Nothing that would hurt her or anything, but something that could be difficult to live with is she ended up having it. He said that if she had it, that it would start to show when she became an adolescent.”

Sam kept an objective expression but he had a distinct feeling what she was dancing around. “You were worried about this possible condition?”

The woman nodded. “She was starting to have some behavioral issues and- and-” she closed her eyes and tears leaked out. “He said he could help her and I believed him,” she sobbed out. Sam never got used to sobbing mothers. He pulled out a small packet of tissues from his suit jacket pocket and handed them to her. She accepted and after a moment pulled herself together.

“Can you tell me what happened over the past few months?”

“We arranged to meet in person at a cafe in town. He brought her a ridiculous bouquet of sunflowers and daisies. He was much different than the man I knew before. I don’t know how to put it, he was softer around the edges. We met at the cafe once a week for a few hours. Mostly they just talked. Sometimes I sat on the other side of the cafe so they could have some privacy. He started sending me child support cheques. It all seemed to be fine.”

“He was able to help her with the condition you thought she might be developing?”

She nodded. “I think it helped to have someone who understood to talk to. But then…” she swallowed, “it change for the worse about two months ago.”

“What changed?”

“The child support cheques doubled, then tripled. He was sending me much more than a garage mechanic should be making. I met him at the cafe without Danny and asked him about the cheques. He said he’d just picked up another job. I was afraid though. When I received a cheque for three thousand dollars I confronted him. I demanded to know if the money was dirty. I didn’t want Danny to have anything to do with what he was in the past. I was so furious. He looked guilty and I just knew. I told him no more. We won’t have anything to do with him.”

“How did he take that, Ms. Gildman?”

Her hands uncurled in her lap. “He… understood. He told me to tell Danny he was sorry and that she was the best thing in this world and he didn’t want to ruin that. Danny, though, didn’t take it so well.” She rubbed her arm absently and Sam noticed for the first time the scarred skin on her forearm.

“What did she do?”

“She kept trying to contact him. When he didn’t answer her calls she skipped school and took a bus to Henderson to find him. She did, but he called me and asked me to come and pick her up. Eventually, she seemed to calm down about it. He must’ve explained it to her in a way that didn’t sound like her mother was ruining her life.”

“You reported her missing on the 5th?” Sam asked after a moment. She nodded. “Can you tell me what made you think she was missing?”

Ms. Gildman took a steadying breath and began in a flat voice; “Alex called me and asked where Danny was. I would’ve hung up on him but his voice was panicked. He asked if Danny was with me right at that moment and I said no. He went quiet and I thought that he’d hung up but then he said- said he was sorry. He was so sorry that he’d failed, that he couldn’t stay out and that he was going to find Danny and bring her back and end everything.”

Sam paused and looked right at the woman. She looked tired, resigned. “Do you know what he meant by that?”

She shook her head. “He hung up and didn’t say anything specific. But I don’t have to think too hard to figure that he’d fallen back into his old crowd and done something he shouldn’t and- and-” her breath hitched and tears swam in her eyes. “My baby isn’t coming back is she?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James Monroe he's a wicked rogue  
> And deep inside me he tore my soul  
> James Monroe he's a wicked rogue  
> And deep inside me he tore my soul
> 
> Oh I won't be waiting for him no more  
> Just how long I've been waiting I'm not too sure  
> He breaks hearts wherever he goes  
> So listen to me before he gets too close
> 
> ~James Monroe, The Henry Girls


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No wonder you're so stubborn  
> Nobody ever made you dig deeper  
> No wonder you got demons  
> Everything you ever did is coming back around  
> I can't help you if I'm weaker  
> You took the honey from the queen bee keeper  
> No wonder you have demons  
> Everyone's got a choice this time around
> 
> The Glitch Mob ft Aja Volkman "Our Demons"

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” Dean said as Stiles tossed him some sheets to put on the worn couch. They stood in the ruins of the old Hale house, in what was once the living room. Stiles shrugged and walked over to flick on the space heater.

“It’s just for tonight. You’ll be staying with Derek most of the time but tonight we need our alone time,” Stiles said.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. Far too much information. “Why can’t I stay at oh, I don’t know, a hotel?”

“Look, it’s better this way. Everyone thinks the full moon is a one night thing, but really it just peaks for one night. The night before and after can still be problematic, especially for newbs. Do you want to risk it around a bunch of people?”

Dean huffed. “Can’t I stay with someone then?”

“Scott’s coming by after work in a few hours and Ana will be stopping by with him. Everyone else has human family around. Just rest up tonight. Training starts tomorrow.”

Dean didn’t conceal his irritation, but Stiles had a point. He’d stayed in worse accommodations. But what the hell was he supposed to do while he waited? He felt ridiculously restless and he knew they were going to seal him in one of those mountain ash circles so he couldn’t leave. He had to leave all his weapons with Sam. There wasn’t even a tv here.

“Here, I think this was everything,” the girl said as she gently placed a book bag on the floor by the sofa. “Hi, I’m Allison by the way,” she said, giving Dean a little wave. Dean nodded, taking in the human girl with a kind face who carried herself like a woman who could handle herself in a fight.

“Ana and myself are being super generous and lending you a few things,” Stiles said, handing the bag to Dean with a mocking flourish. Inside Dean found one of those old portable dvd players, several different types of movies, a few scifi and thriller paperbacks, and some choice comics.

“I recommend you take extra care not to damage the books,” Allison quipped. “Ana is very protective of them.”

“And if any of those comics are breathed on too heavily I’ll personally tear you a new one,” Stiles said.

Dean gave them a resigned look. It was better than nothing. “Like he said, it’s just for one night. We figured you’d like a night off after the trip. I imagine it was… trying?” Allison said, smirking in Stiles’ direction.

“Hey, he should be happy Derek wouldn’t let Ana drive.”

Allison nodded in agreement. Dean was thankful that the girl never took a turn at the wheel. That was something he’d rather not relive. “Is there anything we can get you? Like something to eat later?” Allison asked.

Dean perked up. “Pie would be awesome.” Allison smiled and said she’d put in the word. She glanced at the time on her watch and told Stiles they had to go so she could make it to work on time. They took their leave and Allison sealed the barrier around the Hale house on their way out. As the Jeep pulled away and drove out of hearing, Dean stood there in the burnt out shell of a house. An ominous silence pressed in and despite the open floor plan he felt like the blackened walls were creeping closer. It took a few moments to adjust but Dean finally shook his head and sighed. He shuffled over to the worn couch and dug through the bookbag for something to do.

* * *

“I’m disappointed, Dean.” Dean’s eyes snapped open and he bolted up from the couch, causing several comics to flutter to the ground. It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the slight glow from the space heater. Dean could see and what he saw standing across the room made his heart skip.

“I’m gone for only a few months and you become a monster?” Castiel asked. Dean took a step back and shook his head. “Do not deny it, Dean.”

“Cas… you’re dead.”

Castiel tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes a bit. “That’s never stopped me before.”

Dean took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He didn’t know why he was so afraid. He couldn’t seem to get enough air and he felt his heartbeat accelerating. “I saw you… you vanished…” Dean struggled to get the words out and failed. Cas nodded, like he was remembering something as well.

“You’re in Purgatory, Cas.”

“Oh, is that it? Well, that’s convenient,” Cas grinned and his face was suddenly covered in black blood, just like the last time Dean saw him vanish with the expelled Leviathans into the portal to Purgatory. “It’d be very unfortunate for him to show up.”

Dean tried to focus, but it was nearly impossible with his pulse hammering in his ears. He felt like he needed to crawl out of his skin, he had to get out- the fake Cas wavered and disappeared when a low growl came from Dean.

“Still, this is very good news,” John Winchester said from somewhere behind him. Dean jumped, turning to face his dead father. “I was worried when I couldn’t find him anywhere.” John Winchester frowned when Dean’s eyes burned iridescent blue, “I can’t believe you let yourself get bitten by a werewolf. But I guess when you hunt for a long enough time, eventually something will hunt you back. Deals with devils, right?” A summoning circle spreads across the floor and John smiled as he shifted to Bobby with a bandage around his head.

“Whatever you are, you’re not fooling me,” Dean grit out. He clenched his hand and felt claws dig into his palms. The sting of pain brought him back to the moment. Bobby shook his head and took several deliberate steps toward Dean, the boots thumping solidly on the burnt floorboards.

“I don’t need to fool you, you’ll fool yourself.” Bobby paused and gave Dean a hard look. “Do you really think a weekend at werewolf camp is going to make you any less of a monster? Any less of a danger to people, to Sam?” Bobby pulled out a sawed off shotgun and pointed it right at his chest. “You should be put down, Dean.”

“Fuck you,” Dean said through bared fangs.

“Dean? Who are you talking to?” Dean spun around to find Ana, Scott, and some girl he didn’t know standing by the opened front door. Ana moved in front of the girl protectively, and Scott eyed him warily.

* * *

Stiles groaned when he heard the cell buzz on the nightstand. He seriously contemplated throwing the thing across the room and breaking it but knew it was probably ringing for a good reason. He refused to move though, he was far too comfortable with his body draped lazily over Derek’s, head resting on his chest. Leave it to Derek to answer if he felt like it.

Derek’s chest rose and fell with the sigh he let out as he reached for his cell. Derek squinted at the sudden brightness of the screen and answered. “What is it?”

“We may have a problem with Dean,” Scott said.

Stiles frowned. This guy was costing him far too much Derek time lately. “Which would be?” Derek asked, his voice a bit more harsh than it should be, but Stiles felt the same way.

“This guy has enough holes in his head to make swiss cheese jealous,” Jan said from the other end of the line.

“What?” Dean asked, offended and confused.

“What she means,” Ana said, “someone is already messing with his head and we need to find a way to deal with a mentally unstable hunter-werewolf.”

“Hey!” Dean barked.

Stiles closed his eyes and an irritated noise escaped him. “Can’t this be dealt with in the morning?” he demanded.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Just get over here when you two are done ok?” Scott said finally. Derek frowned and hung up, tossing the cell onto the nightstand again.

They lay there in silence for a bit, just dozing. Stiles finally propped himself up and looked down at a still fairly tired Derek. Derek smiled up at him and, like always, Stiles felt his insides do that awesome flip thing and he smiled back. “He said when we were done…” Stiles said, raising his eyebrows suggestively, “and since we’re awake…” Derek’s smile broke into a grin and he pulled Stiles closer until their lips met for a slow but intense kiss. “Might as well work out some tension, yeah?” Stiles whispered when they pulled apart.

Stiles kissed along Derek’s jaw until he reached his neck and bit him playfully at his pulse point. Derek’s breath hitched and Stiles shifted his weight to free his hands. Stiles let his hands move up Derek’s torso, to his shoulders, and when he gripped Derek’s forearms to pin him down, he growled low against his neck. Derek’s eyes closed and he moved just enough to allow Stiles more access, a silent plea. Only Stiles knew how much he liked to submit, and he was more than happy to oblige during these moments alone.

 


	10. Chapter Ten

Ana handed Dean the whole apple pie and a plastic fork. She smiled softly as he perked up and thanked her. She gracefully sat down on the charred floor across from him and dug into her own late night snack of Milano cookies. He glanced at her suspiciously, realizing how close she was and how she didn’t appear on edge. He heard Derek, Scott, and Jan talking outside but not what they were saying. It was just himself and Ana within the house, sitting by the space heater.

“Why are you suddenly being so nice?”

Ana nibbled at a cookie and folded up her knees to her chest. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to respond but didn’t glare or flash her eyes at him like she’d been doing most of the time. “You’re in Beacon Hills now, so I guess in a way you’re our guest now. Aunt Sonya reminded me that it’s shameful to be inhospitable.”

Dean snorted, “I hate to be a prisoner if this is honored guest conditions.”

Ana shrugged and propped her chin on her knees and went quiet. She watched him eat the rest of the pie and it reminded her of Stiles when he first turned. A faster metabolism burning energy demanded more calories she assumed. He was going to make a formidable werewolf if he survived. She knew that the last time they met that she was able to take him down only because she surprised him. Hand to hand, he could possibly overpower her. He was solid and practically a giant compared to her. That wasn’t what frightened her though.

“Don’t take it personally,” Ana said, startling Dean. “I know that you’re not purposefully behind what’s been happening, but someone is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone is pulling the strings, Dean. Something more is happening and that’s why we can’t trust each other completely. So, don’t take it personally.”

Dean narrowed his eyes at the implication behind her words. He hated not having the upper hand, not knowing what was going on. More so, over the years he grew to hate nothing more than other powers messing with his and Sam’s actions. He loathed the feeling of being pawns in a game he couldn’t see or understand. What confused him, though, was the sympathy softening the girl’s features.

* * *

Scott winced a little as he sat down between Ana and Stiles on the floor. Earlier at the clinic a poodle was brought it after being hit by a car and when Deaton was trying to calm down the owner, Scott had used his alpha ability to take enough of the dog’s pain to stabilize and save the her. He’d be fine in the morning but his muscles were currently very stiff. Ana slid a huge portion of Aunt Sonya’s beet and beef stew towards him and Stiles gave him a worried look. Scott smiled reassuringly and ate the late dinner quickly.

“So… what exactly happened earlier?” Scott asked Dean finally. Dean said nothing. “We can’t help if we don’t know, so spill it.”

There was far too much authority in the kid’s voice. It irritated him but at the same time somehow made him relax. Maybe it was the pie. Dean told the three sitting with him what happened as best he could, it was foggy in his memory even though only a hour and half had passed.

The three of them exchanged looks once he’d finished and Ana nodded slightly. “Sounds like an alpha messing with you,” Scott said.

“What do you mean?”

“Werewolves instinctually form packs. An alpha’s strongest instinct is to make, maintain, and lead a pack. A lone alpha is exceedingly dangerous and unstable to anyone because the instinct can overpower their humanity and better judgement,” Scott said, poking at his food.

“Basically they go nuts,” Stiles added, his face serious in the dim light.

“So generally when a person gets attacked and bitten without consent, it’s usually by an unstable alpha trying to start a pack.”

Dean frowned and wondered what Scott was getting at, but for once restrained himself against interrupting.

“Joining a pack isn’t automatic. The newly bitten has to seal the bond with a hunt, usually the target is the person’s human ‘pack’, their closest family or friends.”

“Shed the old to make way for the new,” Ana said bitterly.

“Most people don’t agree to that,” Scott said.

Dean didn’t like where this was going. He felt a wave of rage seize in his chest at the thought of anyone telling him to kill Sam, crazy person or not.

“An alpha can cause the ones they’ve bitten to hallucinate, mess with their memories, and wage general mental warfare. They can wear you down until they can outright control your actions. What you described sounds like what we’ve experienced before.” The empathy in Scott’s voice made Dean still, realizing he’d been on edge.

“You’ve experienced that?”

“It’s what started all of this in the first place,” Scott sighed as he leaned back and popped his spine. “Derek’s psychotic uncle, Peter Hale, bit me and went on a murderous rampage through Beacon Hills, hell bent on getting me to do the same. I almost killed they people I cared the most about.”

Stiles and Ana gave Dean a brief run down on their own experiences; Stiles with the nogitsune when he was still human and Ana’s with the crazy bitch who bit her. Stiles knew all too well what it was like to be vulnerable because of ‘holes in his head’ as Jan and her grandmother called them. Dean all but gawked in horror at Ana’s clipped account of fleeing from Marla and then being possesed by the alpha’s spirit after nearly dying herself.

“So… you think that’s what it was earlier?” Dean asked.

Ana nodded. “You’ve died before, right? That’s why you and Sam smell so off.”

“Uh, well, we’ve both died… a few times…” Dean frowned, trying to follow the sudden change of topic.

“Dying and coming back leaves you even more vulnerable to being mind fucked by an alpha,” Stiles explained. “That’s how the nogitsune got to me. I died for about twenty minutes one time. So I can’t imagine how easy it’d be to get into your head if you’ve died multiple times. I still can’t believe people can come back so frequently, does this bother anyone else?” Stiles huffed.

“How- how do you fix it?”

“Well… there are a few options. It’s not the same for everyone, but likely they’re all options you’re not going to like,” Scott said. He was getting tired, he felt like any moment he’d pass out but shook off the feeling. “We’ll go over them in the morning. The first step anyway is to learn to control yourself, which’ll help with mental defenses.” Scott heard Derek’s Camaro off in the distance. He was getting back from dropping of Jan and discussing their current problem with Iris LeClaire. Scott stood up and stretched. “Derek will keep an eye out for the rest of the night. If this is an alpha messing with you, they’ll be nearby. I’m not having another alpha manipulating someone into causing trouble again,” Scott said, his tone leaving no room for argument.


	11. Chapter Eleven

“Sam, you awake?”

Sam blinked a few times and tried to get his eyes to adjust to the dim light of the tunnel. “Yeah, where are we?”

Sam heard the sound of metal grate against bricks and moved a bit to confirm he too was bound. How he ended up in these situations really made him wonder sometimes. “Well, looks and smells like we’re still in the sewers,” Chris sighed. They were chained in a small alcove set off from the main tunnel, as far as they could tell from the gurgling of water bouncing off the brick. They each had about three feet of chain, not too secure in Sam’s opinion.

“I’m too old for this,” Chris mumbled.

“I must admit, I agree,” a voice called from around the corner. A man in his late twenties and early thirties rounded the corner, his feet bare and making no sound on the wet ground. “I thought even hunters retired if they lived past forty.” He was tall and lean, his rags hardly disguising his lithe frame. Sam thought he might look unhealthily thin out in the daylight, but it didn’t look like he spent much time out in the hot, desert sun above.

“I’m surprised. Where’s the other one? The other tall hunter,” he said, pointing at Sam.

“Who?” Sam asked, testing the waters.

The young man looked right at him and a smile cracked his face. “Don’t even try that. I’m not a patient man and you’re on the thinnest possible ice. The only reason you’re both alive right now is because the dead can’t answer questions and I have a few that beg to be answered. So, let’s try again. Where is the other hunter?”

* * *

“Hmmm….” Iris LeClair said as she circled Dean. He tried not to twitch as the older woman inspected him like a choice piece of meat. “You’ve been up to all sorts of trouble haven’t you?” The smell of too many candles, herbs, incenses and fragrant woods made Dean really need to sneeze. He was in Jan’s living room with Ana, Jan, and Allison. He glanced over to Ana, wondering vaguely how she could possibly stand the smoky atmosphere of the tiny living room.

“You are right, nieta. Many, many holes for the spirits to walk through. I wonder how you have gotten along this way?” Irish finished her circling, standing in front of Dean. Her dark eyes gleamed with curiosity.

Dean, usually not one short for words, didn’t know whether to be offended or not. Before he could say anything, however, his stomach growled in loud protest and Iris’ eyebrows went sky high. She turned to the girls and gave them a hard look; “when’s the last time this poor man’s been fed?”

“Abuela-” Jan started but she was cut off. Iris barked out orders, sending the girls off in the direction of her kitchen. Only Ana remained, but she did look rather uncomfortably guilty under Iris’ condemnation.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” she said, her tone softening as she reached up to pat him on the shoulder. “Please sit down, we’ll have a chat after some lunch, yes?” She gripped his shoulder and with surprising force sat the hunter down on her old sofa. Iris disappeared to the kitchen and Dean could hear the woman bustling about with Jan and Allison.

* * *

“What I want to know is why when you and the other hunter show up in our tunnels, Danny and Cole go missing,” the man from before asked. Judging from how the others were fanned out around him, Sam figured he had to be in charge of this pack of skinwalkers.

“What’s it to you?” Sam asked.

The skinwalker narrowed his eyes. “I’ve grown pretty fond of the kid. The old man wasn’t half bad either. Lined us up with some choice meals for the past few months. Where are they?”

Chris took advantage of the focus on Sam to examine their odds. The head skinwalker was young compared to many of the others. They all looked fairly ragged and pale, but also most were somewhat older. He wondered why they all appeared to be slightly on edge and annoyed with their apparent leader. He carefully watched the leader. He noticed something familiar about him and made an educated guess. “Relatives of yours?”

The skinwalker’s attention snapped to Argent. “Thought so. They’re dead and buried out in the desert.” The skinwalker’s eyes went wide and his body went tense with anger. Chris took in the brief look of panic on the young man’s face and internally nodded to himself. This man wasn’t concerned for the well-being of the two, just for losing key players.

“Adam, we should just kill them. This is a waste of time, we shouldn’t have come back!” one of the pack spoke up, an older woman with tangled hair. Many of the others, numbering around twelve, muttered in agreement.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” another said above the rest. Chris glanced to Sam, but kept his heart rate in check. He recognized the voice, but a quick look around didn’t provide a familiar face. He kept as still as possible and maintained his expression.

“And why is that?” the woman snapped, turning and addressing a younger man on the edge of the assembly.

“They obviously know a lot more than they’re letting on.” Adam turned toward the speaker, recovering from his moment of lost control. “Don’t you think it’s strange that there’s been so much hunter activity in the area? We were being so careful and yet bodied kept popping up? Something is going on here.”

Adam, the leader, nodded in agreement. He then turned back to Chris and Sam, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “We’ll get to that later. For now, you take the old one, Dylan. McKayla and Jeff, stay here with this one. Everyone else go up and see what we can find for a hunt.”

Dylan, the one who’d spoken up, stepped forward and hoisted Chris up and cuffed him with handcuffs. Adam tossed him a key and he unlocked the ankle shackles. Dylan returned the key and with a shove indicated Chris should start walking. Sam tried not to panic as the other hunter disappeared from view.

Dylan and Chris walked until they reach another alcove similar to the one where he and Sam had woken up. Dylan pointed toward the wall and as Chris sat down to be shackled once more, Dylan leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “Now what’s this all about, Argent?”


	12. Chapter Twe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark is the forest   
> And bitter are the trees  
> Dark is the forest  
> And bitter are the trees  
> I don't feel   
> The spirit walks with me
> 
> Spirit Walks, Nerina Pallot

Dean polished off the last of the mountainous plate of food Iris handed him earlier and felt much better than he had in awhile. Iris gave him a grand smile and took the plate from him and handed it to Jan, who left for the kitchen. So this is what it’s like at grandma’s house, Dean thought.

“Now, we have some business to attend to, mi querido,” Irish said, motioning for him to join her at a small table on the other side of the living room. Dean obliged and sat down on the wicker chair and glanced around at the icons of saints on the walls. “Ana, I can take it from here.” Ana didn’t budge, standing under the archway to the living room. Iris frowned and gave her a stern look. “I’m perfectly safe, mamita. You can wait outside with Janice and Allison.”

Ana chewed her bottom lip and glanced at Dean. “Don’t tell Scott or Derek,” and she turned and walked out to the front porch. Dean frowned, once more feeling like a dangerous prisoner on a very short leash. In fact, in infuriated him.

“Don’t take it to heart, mi querido. They are all very protective and want to keep each other safe,” Iris said, leaning forward and placing a strong, warm hand on his own gripping the table in with anger he didn’t even realized was bleeding out. “Now. You have passed many times from this world and it leaves you, how do they say, very open.” Dean shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but didn’t interrupt. “Also, as a loup-garou, lobizon, what have you, along with the spirits you’re an open door. It will be very easy for an alpha to push you and get into your head. I can help with the spirits.”

“What exactly do you mean by spirits?” Dean asked. A sneaking suspicion made him picture himself surrounded by the black smoke of demons, or things that came out of Hell with him or even Heaven or Purgatory. In any case he didn’t like the implications.

“Everyone has spirits around them. Family, friends, ancestors and sometimes the lost dead, ghede. They can help or harm, sometimes they do both. However, those who are around death constantly attract the attention of many, many spirits. They can be a lot of trouble, but generally can be dealt with by someone who works with the spirits. And you’ve been to the other side, imagine what that would mean?” Dean nodded his understanding. “There are too many buzzing around you. I can help dismiss them and send them where they should be. This will help you.”

“Ok, makes sense. But what does this have to do with the hallucinations last night?”

“You saw dead loved ones, yes?” Dean nodded. “Unfortunately I can’t help with the alpha’s influence directly. How should I say this? Hm.” Iris pursed her lips, trying to gather her thoughts. “When you were only human, the spirits were there but could only do so much. Now, they have a new source of power; the wolf and the bond between wolves. It puts them in a frenzy. The mind will fight it off, but it will wear you down. The alpha can use that against you to assert itself over you more than if your mind wasn’t fighting off the spirits too. Does that make sense?”

It made a great deal of sense. Horrifying sense. “The alpha is basically sneaking in under the radar. So I’m basically fu-screwed?” Dean managed to catch himself, unwilling to offend the lady.

“Oh, it will be a long, tiring, hard journey, but not a hopeless one,” Iris patted his hands reassuringly. “Not all of the spirits are there to cause trouble. So here is your option. I can perform a head washing ceremony. That will send the spirits off to where they need to be. I will be straight with you though, this will build a fence not a wall,” Iris leaned forward and her dark eyes met his own, “the rest is up to you. I cannot help you with the alpha, whoever she may be. You will need to work with Scott and Derek and the others. Listen to them. I know they are young, but they have been through so much. Your paths are more alike than you think.”

 

* * *

 

“I see, then we’re after the same thing,” Dylan said, his voice not above a hush. “I’ve been out of contact with Satomi for three weeks. I haven’t been able to get far enough away to make a call or anything.”

Chris leaned forward and kept his voice as low as he could, knowing how easily their voices could carry in the sewer tunnels and how sensitive their captor’s hearing could be. “What’s going on, Dylan? Please tell me you’ve got something,” he asked the werewolf. He recognized Dylan’s voice because they’d met a few times before. He was a relatively recent addition to Satomi’s pack, becoming a werewolf around the same time as Stiles. Dylan was using a glamour charm to change his appearance while gathering intel for Satomi.

Dylan nodded slightly and after checking again to make sure no skinwalkers were within hearing, relayed what he knew to the hunter. About a month ago, Dylan had infiltrated the skinwalker pack after following a similar trail the Winchesters had tracked. They knew he was a werewolf and he’d stated that his own alpha had disappeared and was seeking a new pack. Adam readily accepted him, declaring that their alpha, his dad recently released early from prison, could use another hunter and there was plenty of food to go around. Dylan met with Alex Cole a few times, and it was very clear to him that the older alpha honestly wanted nothing to do with his son or the skinwalkers. Dylan noted how strange the man behaved, only showing up with a body and leaving with it when the pack was done. “He didn’t hide the bodies very well,” Dylan whispered, “I realized he wasn’t hiding them at all. If he wanted to dispose of them he should’ve just left them down here in the sewers. He was purposefully placing them where they would be found.”

Dylan paused and Chris digested the information. “He was trying to attract attention.”

Dylan agreed. “That’s what I came to think. That should be the last thing he’d want. When the girl, Danny, showed up one day demanding to see her dad, Cole flipped. It wasn’t just that he was worried about her being pulled into the pack, he was terrified. I could smell it rolling off of him. He got her out of here as soon as possible. I got the impression he actually like his daughter. Right around that time I managed to slip away for a day or two and met up with another small pack of werewolves outside Las Vegas. They were tracking their missing alpha and allowed me to come with them. We found a very strange scene on the outskirts of Henderson. We found the body of their alpha with a bullet to the heart.”

“That’s what Sam and I found out in the desert too,” Chris interjected. Dylan frowned and shifted a bit.

“There was blood on the alpha that didn’t belong to him. It wasn’t human either,” Dylan met Chris’s eyes and continued, “I believe an alpha is behind this, one hunting like a human. I don’t like it, Argent. If one person is responsible for all these dead alphas… one werewolf…”

Chris swallowed. Killing an alpha meant a werewolf took on that alpha’s power. A beta or omega would gain alpha powers and status, but an alpha killing another alpha? He wasn’t entirely sure what would happen. He knew that Derek had killed one other alpha since gaining alpha status, but he was unsure if there was any real difference. He needed to ask Deaton or maybe Satomi if there was some benefit of an alpha killing another alpha. “How many has it been?”

“From what you just told me about Cole, he was the ninth.” They sat in silence for a time, the air heavy with uncertainty. “I tried to leave after finding that dead alpha, but Adam and the others tracked me down. It seems Adam has taken a liking to me,” Dylan said with irritation. “He is on very shaky ground with his pack now that Cole is gone. The pack is on edge because this whole area is paralyzed by rumor and many are leaving.”

“We need to get back to Beacon Hills,” Chris said.

 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

“How do you expect to control yourself if you don’t face up?” Stiles demanded.

“I’m pretty sure the whole idea is to not shift,” Dean said, glaring at the kid.

“Why are we even bothering with this guy?” Malia asked Erica. The blonde shrugged. She wasn’t going to complain about a nice view. This hunter maybe a little old but damn he wasn’t too bad looking. She twirled a finger in her hair and wondered what he looked like under all that flannel.

They were all out in the preserve, in one of the clearings they frequented as a pack. Malia and Erica had the day off from work and were only there under orders from Scott to make sure the new guy didn’t go crazy on his first training session. They clearly wanted to be somewhere else, but they didn’t say it out loud. Stiles was getting more and more frustrated with Dean, trying to explain a few basics and Dean was being obstinate about it.

Ana sat up on a tree branch with her feet dangling about thirty feet off the ground. She watched as Stiles and Dean butted heads, figuratively, and sighed. Stiles was going to switch tactics soon, from attempting to be reasonable to deliberately infuriating to get Dean to shift out of anger. This wasn’t going to help in the long run. “Ok, that’s enough,” she called down from her perch when Dean shoved Stiles. They both looked up, startled. Ana stood up and lightly jumped from the branch to branch until she descended the tree and hopped to the ground. She made her way over to the boys and gently separated them. She gave Dean a measured look and chose her words carefully.

“You know Bruce Banner right?” Ana asked, recalling that Stiles had placed a few issues of The Avengers in the bag from the other night.

Dean blinked, and gave her a confused look, “yeah? The Hulk.”

“Mm-hm, he turns into the Hulk when he gets angry. But in the movie he tells Captain America says ‘now’s the time to get angry’ when the aliens are invading New York? And he say’s ‘that’s the thing, I’m always angry’ and Hulks out, but he’s able to control it. Do you follow?” she asked, hoping she was making her point.

Dean sighed and ran a hand nervously through across the back of his neck and nodded.

“We get it, really we do. It sucks that you’re a werewolf and all, but there’s no use fighting something that’s a part of you now. When you accept it and let it be a part of you, it’ll be much easier to control,” Ana said, her tone gentle.

“And if you don’t control yourself, someone else will,” Stiles pointed out.

 

* * *

 

“I can only get one of you out,” Dylan said quietly to the two chained hunters. Under Adam’s orders the werewolf took them to a different location while the pack went out for a hunt. They were alone, but they spoke quietly just to be safe.

“Sam, you need to get to Beacon Hills. You need to tell Scott, Derek, and Satomi everything,” Chris said.

Sam shook his head. “Why can’t you just leave with us?” he asked Dylan.

Dylan sighed and explained that he was in too deep with the skinwalkers. “I tried to get away before, but Adam tracked me down. The chances of one of us getting away is higher than all of us trying to leave. If I leave, you two are toast. Adam won’t be able to control the pack and they’ll probably kill the both of you in a matter of a day or so. If one of you ‘escapes’ I can try to keep the other alive long enough to get reinforcements.”

Sam didn’t like it but Dylan made sense. He was surprised, however, that the werewolf wasn’t insisting Chris be the one to go. Argent could see the thoughts crossing Sam’s mind like an open book and reassured Sam that this wasn’t him playing martyr. “You’re younger and faster than I am, you can hustle. Just get back to the Impala and drive. Call the alphas and get back here and save my sorry ass.”

Sam huffed and muttered; “fine, so how do we do this?”

 

* * *

 

Running never felt this effortless, this exhilerating. It was like he was barely touching the ground, and yet feeling the earth beneath his bare feet was so real. The forest was dark but he could see everything. He saw something running ahead of him, clumsily, and he felt his fangs flash a grin.

The chase continued and he savored it. He could move faster, could end the hunt whenever he chose. The thrill of running was still coursing through him, so he let the prey keep fleeing before him. It would tire soon and then he could end it all.

He was aware suddenly of another presence. It made him waver for a moment in confusion. Something slipped through the forest with him but out of his keen sight. They ran parallel for a bit longer until the figure ahead stumbled and fell to the forest floor. Instinct went into overdrive and the other presence slipped from his mind. The prey was scrambling on the ground to regain footing as he closed in. He slid to a halt and circled, waiting for just the right opportunity…

What followed was a blur. The prey fought back with surprising strength and tenacity but he was so much stronger. He pinned the figure down and with a fluid movement put his claws to it’s neck and tore out its throat.

He looked up when something moved out from the trees just ahead. A large wolf with glowing red eyes slid into his vision with predatory grace, fur gleaming silver under the pale moonlight. As it came closer he had the strange sensation that it was more than physically moving closer, looming, pressing against him like pressure one feels when going too deep under water. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it until it grinned wide, all the teeth showing with mad satisfaction. He glanced down, remembering the prey…

Sam’s lifeless eyes stared up at him. Dean’s heart slammed against his ribs when he saw Sam’s blood on his hands, _his claws_ , and he couldn’t breathe. He fell back, hard, against the bare earth and dry leaves crumbled beneath him. The wolf kept grinning, the pressure pushed against him and he could smell his own panic and fear. He was drowning and paralyzed and all he could see was the silver wolf whispering that it’ll be all over if he didn’t fight so much.

A roar echoed in the distance and the silver wolf stopped in her tracks, baring her teeth in frustration.

 

* * *

 

“I thought anger would be your trigger, but I’ve been wrong before,” Derek said. He pushed the beer across the small kitchen table, closer to Dean. “Fear wasn’t my first or second guess.”

Dean took the bottle and tried to will away the last bit of shaking in his hands. “So none of that was real.”

Derek shook his head and opened his own beer. It was around two in the morning and his apartment was silent once more. It was just the two of them on a Sunday night and Derek hadn’t called anyone else yet. It had taken nearly forty-five minutes to subdue Dean and in the end he had to force him to shift back to human with an alpha roar. Glancing around his apartment Derek wished he’d just done that in the first place. He would’ve been more irritated if he didn’t remember the sheer terror that had rolled off of Dean like tidal waves when he’d shifted.

Dean remained quiet and Derek waited. Maybe Derek should’ve known that the cocky and loudmouthed hunter’s real trigger would be fear, because deep down those who boast the most have the shakiest ground to stand on. It made sense in a backwards sort of way, but this sort of mental thing wasn’t Derek’s area of expertise.

Dean finished his beer. He took a deep breath and let it out. “How do a bunch of kids control themselves and I can’t?” Dean asked bitterly.

Derek smiled and drank some more of his beer. “It isn’t easy. For one, none of them resisted as much as you are.”

“If you’re the alpha I don’t understand why you can’t help me,” Dean grumbled.

“I’m not _the_ alpha. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from being an alpha is that’s I’m horrible at managing a pack and helping them be in control.” Dean gave him a confused look. “It’s taken a long time and a lot of mistakes to get to where we are. Sure, I can force you to shift. I can show you how to use anger and pain to remind you that you’re human. But it won’t help you in the long run. It didn’t work for Scott, it didn’t work for Erica, Boyd, Jackson, or Issac, or Malia. It doesn’t even work for me anymore.”

Dean frowned and snorted, “then what good are you? Seems like a lousy way to be an alpha.”

Derek nodded in agreement, much to Dean’s surprise. “The only stable way to control yourself is to find an anchor. The good news is that now you know what triggers your shift, it’ll be easier to find what keeps you human.”

“Anchor?”

“No one mentioned that?”

“Well, maybe,” Dean said, “Stiles might’ve mentioned it.”

“You haven’t been listening to any of us have you?” Derek leaned forward, the overhead light casting shadows over his face. “I don’t think you realize how generous we’re being, Dean. We don’t have to help you, in fact it would be much simpler to put you down like any other werewolf that risks exposing us. So I suggest that from this moment forward you stop treating my pack like a bunch of kids and show them some respect. You think it’s so hard. You think you’re the only one to wake up from nightmares where you’ve killed someone you love? You’re not. In a couple hours Stiles and Ana are coming by and if I so much as think you’re not taking them seriously and wasting their time, I’ll ignore Scott’s rules and take you out. Am I clear?”

Dean swallowed but his mouth was dry. Derek’s tone alone made him cringe, held a similar pressure to it as the presences in his nightmare. It was different though. He wasn’t afraid, in fact, it was like a veil was being lifted. As if Derek was cutting through a fog Dean didn’t even know clouded his mind. He felt tension ease out of him slightly and he wondered at it. He sighed in resignation, or maybe it was acceptance, and nodded. “But why those two?”

Derek finished off his beer and took the two empty bottles to the trash. “You’ll figure it out once you stop being belligerent. Ana is good at figuring out what makes a person click and Stiles helped Scott much more than I ever did.”


	14. Chapter Fourteen

“Would you like some coffee with that cream, sugar?” asked the waiter with a mischievous gleam in his brown eyes and a flirtatious cock of his hip. He held the coffee pot in his other hand and wiggled it at Dean.

“No, thanks. Gotta leave room for the sugar,” Dean said, smiling back.

“Well, if you need anything else sweet you let me know,” the waiter said, winking at Dean. “My my, Ana, you need to bring more like him around here.”

Ana rolled her eyes as she swatted Stiles’ hand away from her coffee. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Ana slid her mug away from Stiles, who pouted a bit, and she shifted a little nervously in her seat. “Um, Shay, I think I’m going to need to cash in your I.O.U. tonight,” she bit her lip and looked down guiltily.

“Oh? Another one so soon?” Shay asked, his eyebrow cocking and his mismatched earrings jingling as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other. Ana nodded. Shay glanced at Dean and Stiles, taking in all their exhausted expressions. “Well, and I.O.U. is an I.O.U. I’m assuming this is pretty important.” Stiles grumbled incoherently. “Don’t worry about it loves, I gotcha covered. Now,” he pulled out a little notebook and a pen with a flourish, “what can I get me hungry pups for breakfast?”

Dean gagged on his first sip of coffee and Shay gave him an ‘oh honey’ look and took Stiles’ obnoxiously long order. Shay wrote it all down quickly. Ana ordered her usual and since Dean was still trying to recover from gagging on his coffee, Shay just said he’d get him something meaty.

“He knows?” Dean said finally.

“Mmhmm,” Ana took a sip of her coffee and gave Dean a questioning look. “You couldn’t tell? He’s got fae blood.”

“Awesome guy, makes the best cappuccinos,” Stiles sighed with longing.

“He works for Aunt Sonya and teaches a class on modern dance at the studio,” Ana said. “And now that he’s covering my shift here tonight, and food is coming, we need to focus.”

Dean sighed and drained his coffee. “Fine, just let me hit the head first.”

“TMI,” Ana said, frowning. As Dean headed toward the restroom he heard Stiles beg for caffeine, he’d spent all night in the patrol car shadowing Deputy Parish, he needed it. Ana staunchly said no, he’d never get to sleep. God, Dean thought, it’s like she’s his mom or something. He didn’t get it.

As he pushed open the door to the diner’s men’s room, he stopped. Underneath the normal scents of a diner, he smelt something awful. He paused and took a whiff, and shoved aside the voice asking him what he was doing. He moved down the small hallway, past the kitchen, around the corner from the closet with all the harsh cleaning chemicals. When he saw the door to the diner’s exterior, the scent hit him with a renewed intensity. Sulfur. He slammed the door open and rushed out to the back alley.

 

* * *

 

“Well, this is an interesting development!” The woman’s eyes were black and she sneered at Dean. “A Winchester werewolf! Oh,” she just grinned when Dean picked her up by the neck and slammed her against the wall, “my, what big teeth you have!”

The possessed woman kicked out but Dean only tightened his grip. “Awfully rude of you!” she sputtered, “I was right in the middle of a deal you know.” The man in question had fainted when Dean had busted into the alley. Dean struggled to maintain control, to keep from hurting the meatbag but still keep the demon pinned. He knew the exorcism right but it was very hard to bring it to the forefront of him mind when he saw his claws extended and threaten to dig into the woman’s neck. The demon let out a garbled laugh and when Ana and Stiles rushed out, the demon gave Dean one last wicked grin and escaped its vessel as a cloud of black smoke.

“Oookay, that’s a new one to me,” Stiles said when the smoke vanished and the woman went limp, unconscious.

“Dean…” Ana said quietly, “I think you can let go of her now.”

 

* * *

 

“Hm, demons,” Ana said quietly and took a sip of her coffee.

“Odd as it is, it’s kinda nice for someone not to freak out when they see that demons are real,” Dean admitted as he finished off the giant breakfast burrito Shay had served him. He glanced at the girl as she nibbled at her omelette. Stiles walked over and told them his dad examined the situation and concluded that it was a mugging gone wrong. Very handy, Dean thought, to have law enforcement in the family. If it wasn’t so convenient he might’ve had a moral objection or slight apprehension that something could be covered up so easily by a bunch of kids, but given the alternative he decided not to dwell on it.

“You should go home with your dad, Stiles,” Ana said softly, a worried look in her eyes. “You really should get some sleep.” He shook his head. “It’s fine. I can handle this for awhile. We can meet up later.” Stiles agreed with mild protest and took his food to go.

“Ok, I gotta ask,” Dean said after chewing the last bit of burrito, “are you his babysitter or something?”

Ana looked at him like she might take offense but shrugged instead. “I’m not his babysitter. He’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself. I just…” she seemed to stare off into space for a moment, thinking. “I feel responsible for him, maybe?”

“Not helping the ‘not a babysitter’ argument,” Dean scoffed.

Ana frowned and ate a few more bites of her breakfast. She spaced out once more, but an idea made her features light up. “Are you Sam’s babysitter?”

“No,” Dean said.

“Really? Don’t you watch out for him? Make sure he’s ok? I’m sure you had to watch him as a kid,” she put her fork down and propped her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, watching Dean carefully. “That’s what brothers do.”

Dean nodded, his expression asking where she was going with this. “Nearly everyone in our pack comes from only child families. Broken families in some way or another. Only Derek and I had siblings,” Ana paused, making sure Dean realized the past tense of her statement. She took a deep breath and tried to put her thoughts to words. “I guess I feel responsible for Stiles for a couple reasons. In an indirect way, its my fault he’s a werewolf. Its my fault he almost died for simply insisting on being my friend. I know it may look like we’ve all got this control thing mastered, but you didn’t see Stiles at first. I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s a bit… all over the place sometimes?” Dean snorted at the understatement. Ana narrowed her eyes but let it slide. “He’s a werewolf with ADHD. He had it before but for some reason turning didn’t cure him of it like Erica’s epilepsy or Scott’s asthma. It made it much worse and meds don’t work anymore. It gave him, and still does sometimes, real problems just functioning, and like I said, in a way its my fault.” Ana took a drink of her coffee. She didn’t like talking about this but she needed to make a point. “Scott and Derek could keep him from hurting others but it was much more difficult to keep him from hurting himself when he shifted. Eventually Derek became his anchor, and that helps him a lot. But,” Ana pursed her lips and went quiet again. She hesitated, trying to explain why she felt she had to keep an eye on Stiles. It wasn’t something she readily talked about with just anyone. She’d explained it to Jan once, but that was different. She understood even without so many words. Derek noticed it and encouraged her, in his silent sort of way.

“When I was possesed by the spirit of the bitch who turned me, despite all the trouble I’d caused, Stiles risked everything to pull me through. During a headwashing ceremony, he went into my mind and found me again and helped me shed the guilt that Marla used to manipulate me. He helped me let go of the guilt over Josh’s death that tainted my memory of him. When a person pulls you out of a private hell, it tends to make a pretty strong bond, you know? So I try to help him when his mind races into a thousand directions, when his wolf freaked out and tried to tear him apart on the inside because it couldn’t handle the inability to focus. In a weird way, we know each other better than anyone else and it’s like we’re each other’s back up anchors. He feels like a brother to me.”

Dean nodded, looking down at the tabletop in thought. He felt the ghost of warmth on his shoulder, where someone had once pulled him out of Hell. It made more sense now, and despite himself felt a grudging respect and understanding. He’d do the same for Sam without hesitation.

“So, I guess you can count that as an intro to anchors,” Ana said, a slight smile on her lips. She leaned back in the booth and pulled out a worn paperback from her bag and plopped it on the table. “An anchor is someone or something that keeps you human and reminds you of your humanity. It’s the most effective way to control a shift without the direct help of an alpha.”

“How do you know what your anchor is?”

“There’s a few ways. Not exactly a hard science. From our experience it's usually someone you’re close to. Scott has Allison. Jackson has Lydia. Erica and Boyd are each others, as are Derek and Stiles (I help sometimes).” Dean shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t worry, doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic partner. Malia has memories of her step-mom and step-sister. Isaac and Liam seem to be each others but in a more bromance sort of way.”

Dean tilted his head slightly in Ana’s direction, “what about you?”

Ana sighed, “Don’t laugh ok? Mine is music and dancing.”

“What?” Dean suspected she might be lying, but she looked him right in the eye.

“Like I said, it’s different for everyone. Mine used to be Josh, and then my memories of him, but after the Marla incident I felt it was best to let that go. Music is soothing and its distinctly human. It works for me,” she said defensively.

“Fine, sorry. Just doesn’t exactly follow the trend you were setting up,” Dean said.

“From your incident last night, we can be pretty sure fear is very triggering for you. Which isn’t all that surprising, but that’s besides the point,” she slid the book on the table toward him. “The next step is to figure out what makes you human,” she leaned forward for emphasis, “be prepared to do a lot of horribly exhausting thinking and soul searching. Also, you did a decent job earlier with the demon. I thought we’d need to pull you off of her, but you pulled back on your own. Why?”

“Why?” Dean echoed, “I didn’t want to kill her, obviously.”

“Yeah, but what was going through your head? What kept you from just smelling an enemy and tearing them apart?”

“Is that normal?” Dean asked, disgust clear in his voice.

“Stop dodging the question and think,” Ana clipped.

“I don’t know,” Dean sighed, honestly trying to remember what he’d been thinking. It was a bit of a blur. “I’ve hunted demons nearly all my life. It’s just what I do. I know the person possessed doesn’t always survive. I generally try not to rough them up too much.”

Ana tilted her head to one side and when it was clear Dean wasn’t going to say anything else, she spaced out. It was kind of unnerving to Dean, but he was starting to get used to it. If Stiles were here he’d need to move to get his thoughts in some kind of order, but with her it seemed she just needed to go silent for a bit to do the same.

“I think I have an idea,” Ana said finally, startling Dean as he finished off his third coffee. “We’ll have to wait until later, but in the mean time,” she tapped the cover of the paperback. “I want you to read the marked page.”

Dean glanced down and looked back up at the girl waving for the check. It was a well loved copy of Frank Herbert’s _Dune_. He frowned but again reminded himself that she was actually making some sense. He opened up and glanced at a passage lightly circled in pencil:

 

_I must not fear._

_Fear is the mind-killer._

_Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration._

_I will face my fear._

_I will permit it to pass over me and through me._

_And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path._

_Where the fear has gone there will be nothing....only I will remain._

 

He finished and looked up to see Ana watching him. “I want you to memorize that, it could be useful,” she said. 


End file.
